Ask HN: Say Yes or No?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7809368

by 3lackRos3 • 12 years ago

10 21 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

We are RoR team with 4+ years expertise.We get projects through an intermediary. Every project we work on is brought by him. Few days back he spoke to us that the client is coming to visit the team and he wants to introduce my team as his company. The only benefit we get from this is that he has promised more projects in future.How do you think we should react to this?

jdowner• 12 years ago

Personally, I like simple things. Like my life; I like to keep that simple. I try not to lie or mislead people because I found that that leads to no end of complications and painful situations.

If I were in your place (from what you have said), I would not agree to misrepresent your relationship with this person and furthermore I would seriously reconsider whether I would want to continue to deal with someone who is willing to do this. It would be hard to believe that I was not being mislead by him. A reputation is easy to lose and hard to recover.

shock• 12 years ago

Allowing him to present your team as his company puts him in control with the client: he'll get more credibility with the client and he will probably be the main communication conduit with the client. If it were me I wouldn't do it: the same way he is misrepresenting himself in front of the client he could be misrepresenting the client's wishes in front of you. From what you wrote it's seems pretty clear that he sees a clear distinction between his interests and your team's interests and I'm pretty sure he'll be looking after his interests primarily.

Let's say you agree to his wish. What's in it for you? A promise for more projects in the future? Maybe, as long as you agree to present yourselves as his company. The only reason I see why you would agree to his wish is fear (of loss) and there's something I learned with great pain: when I act out of fear, I end up regretting it.

Then there's the fact that by agreeing with his wish you would essentially be lying. I read an essay on NH a couple of months back about an entrepreneur that had a golden rule: never lie! His reason for adopting this rule was that by lying you are telling your brain that things are different than they are in reality and so your brain starts operating with false assumptions and soon enough your thought patterns adapt to the lies and you disconnect from reality in various ways. After the disconnect occurs your brain cannot offer you solutions to the problems you face in reality because it has accepted the fake reality you've presented to it (the one created by the lies). That's it in a gist. Here's the link[0].

Best of luck!

[0] http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/the-surprisingly-la...

mindcrime2• 12 years ago

Allowing him to present your team as his company puts him in control with the client <snip> ... he will probably be the main communication conduit with the client.

That's probably the case anyway. Client A hires Agency Z to do project Q, then Agency Z subcontracts (some or all) of the work to Team D. Agency Z is always going to be the primary interface to the Client anyway in a situation like that. If he's got the pipeline and can bring work in, and Team D doesn't have the sales/marketing mojo to bring in work on their own, they might as well just go along with it.

That said, I'd encourage them to look for ways to break their strict dependence on this one intermediary... I've seen Bad Things happen when a company overly depends on one customer and then that customer goes away for whatever reason. Building a sales funnel and getting deals takes time, especially starting from scratch.

tptacek• 12 years ago

It sounds like it is his company.

a3n• 12 years ago

He may have already been presenting you that way, without your knowledge or consent.

3lackRos33• 12 years ago

yes, We know he is doing that. But unable to do anything

loumf• 12 years ago

In the future contract dispute, how will you explain lying to the customer? IANAL, but it's usually not legal to lie so blatantly about business relationships.

You are his partner.

mindcrime2• 12 years ago

I get all the people saying "never lie" and what-not, and by and large I agree. But in this case, I'm not sure it is much of a lie. If you subcontract through this person, and through him only, and aren't making any effort to do independent work, you are effectively part of his company. OK, you can argue about the semantics of what words mean, but that's all you'd be doing.

In this world, it's not uncommon for people to present sub-contractors in this light. I personally don't think this is the optimal setup, and if I were in your shoes I'd not want all my eggs in one basket, so to speak. But as long as things are what they are, I don't see much harm in going along with this.

3lackRos33• 12 years ago

Even I dont see any harm in this. As developers it gives us few advantages

JSeymourATL2• 12 years ago

Why operate under a False Flag?

Sadly, the intermediary's request shows his true colors. Suggest you make it a top priority to find a new Strategic Partner/Rain Maker/Business Development executive to represent your team. Frankly, this could be a great opportunity to up your game. Adios Intermediary!

dllthomas2• 12 years ago

Or, if he's been doing a good job at it, make it official.

3lackRos33• 12 years ago

Waste of money

jea• 12 years ago

At least in the US, you would be giving him the right to commit your company to legal obligations by making a representation like this to the client. Check out the law of agency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_agency

ChrisNorstrom• 12 years ago

NO. Imagine how betrayed the client is going to be when, not if, but when the client finds out he's been lied to. All it takes is one lie to set up an atmosphere of distrust.

nicholas73• 12 years ago

I'm assuming the reason he does this is because he is either skimming money off the top beyond what you've agreed with, and/or he is building 'his' portfolio with intention of hiring more teams. Either way this is a bad long term proposition for you.

If you need the money now, you can say YES but eventually you will have to either replace this guy or look for projects yourself.

It sounds like he's getting paid by the client first and then he'll pay you? If this has been the arrangement in the past and he paid as agreed, maybe. But if this is a bigger project, as the client wants to visit, you should hammer an agreement to get paid promptly in stages. You don't want this risk of him simply running off with a big payday.

notahacker• 12 years ago

If he wants his client to meet the development team it almost certainly means the exact opposite: he's pushing for larger agency deals with clients offering projects big and complex enough for the client to want some line of communication with the rest of the dev team, and trusts the dev team isn't going to cut him out of the loop altogether.

A guy that brings you random spec work that includes you as "his company" in his pitch is a lot less likely to ditch you than a guy that brings you random spec work who represents himself as a one-man band whilst subcontracting the work to you, or for that matter a regular small business client contracting with you.

billforward• 12 years ago

This is a pretty standard way of working in many other industries. For example when the cable person comes to install your service a good proportion of them are self employed contractors branded as the cable company being paid a fixed fee for every install they complete. The only dubious part of what you have described is how the other party has communicated this, should have really agreed these terms at the beginning of the relationship.

User9812• 12 years ago

Say you're strategic partners, and you specialize in RoR development, and have a business relationship.

taprun• 12 years ago

It's funny that no one mentioned the following:

This guy is going to lie to his client and wants you to lie too, but you feel like you can trust him (to provide you with more work).

Ask HN: Say Yes or No?

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